


Mad, Bad, and Dangerously Uncontrolled

by cleverqueen



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 11:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6468061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleverqueen/pseuds/cleverqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sara doesn’t want to recognize herself in Mick Rory, but she's too practical to ignore the similarities. So she asks him for tips on controlling his dangerous fire obsession. At this point, she could use any help regaining her balance. Discovering control.</p><p>He brings her to Len.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mad, Bad, and Dangerously Uncontrolled

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after Vostok and before 2046. It's also super AU at this point. Oops.
> 
> (Initially, I wanted to write something for Coldwave week. Not only did I totally miss that, but also: this isn’t a Coldwave fic. Ooops again.)

Sara didn’t want to recognize herself in Mick Rory. He was a villain and a crazy man who would happily watch the world tumble down in flames while he laughed and delighted in the pretty colors. Even though he clearly understood what damage it would cause to his own way of living.

Yet, for all that, he had his fire obsession under control. Sara wouldn’t have believed it from looking at him or fighting alongside him. On the outside, he seemed like an unguided missile. But he hadn’t “accidentally” destroyed any civilian targets. Hadn’t killed them all in a spaceship fire.

Based on mission records and near misses, Sara hated to say that she was more volatile. A greater danger to the team than Rory. Even off the field, she’d almost killed Kendra. <<The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.>>

“Gideon, where’s Mick Rory?” Sara glanced up at the ceiling when she asked her question, as if the AI lived in the white and blue plastic.

“He is alone is his quarters, Miss Lance.”

Did he just want to leap outside and burn everything, even when there would be nothing to burn but space? Did he feel trapped in them the way she did?

She didn’t remember walking to his place, which wasn’t a good sign, but he slid his door open without any surprise slackening his thick-skinned cheeks.

No one would trust a face like that. It silently screamed his criminal nature.

The air was warm and smelled of something sweet, like birthday cake. He stepped deeper into his room, not turning his back, but she felt welcomed all the same. Like he’d invited her inside to sit and drink. In fact, a small table was already set up with two empty shot glasses and a clear bottle between them.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re expecting someone. I’ll just–” Her hands fluttered nervously toward the door. <<Dangerous habit in an assassin, Lance.>>

A giant palm enveloped her right shoulder. It was hot, shocking through flesh down to her bones. Her trapezius tensed so hard that a good shove to either side of her torso would send her sprawling instead of gently twisting.

He pushed her into a chair, saying, “You’re here now.”

Right. Sara poured a shot and pounded it, trying to take the comfort it hadn’t really provided since she’d come back from the dead.

The vodka was sweet, a sugary chocolate that went down too easily. If this was the source of the scent she’d sniffed from the door, how much vapor came off the stuff? Only Rory would have something so flammable.

But she wasn’t here to discuss flavored rocket fuel. She had a purpose. “How do you...?” There were words. Somewhere.

“Death dances in your eyes like fire,” he said.

Her shoulders crumpled into a relieved slouch. Somehow, he understood. “Yeah.”

“The bright black flames are gonna eat you up.” He swung a leg over his chair and poured two more shots. “Beautiful and shiny.”

Maybe not so helpful after all. “I’d like to avoid that,” she drawled. She took the cloying drink anyway.

He nodded like it was philosophy. “I’d be right there beside you if I didn’t have Len.” He tossed back the vodka.

Definitely not helpful. Where was she going to find another Captain Cold? Would she even want one? The way it sounded, he was controlling Rory, wielding him like a weapon. Sara was _done_ being somebody else’s weapon.

“He’s not like us,” Rory said. “The flames _can’t_ get him.”

Which put a whole different spin on their partnership. Rory felt safe with Snart because he believed the man _couldn’t_ burn. Not in the metaphorical way, at least.

Even if she was willing to choose her own wielder–<<aim and fire and _kill kill kill_ >>–Sara couldn’t just pick someone and demand they be like Snart. “That’s great for _you_.” Her head thunked into the table next to her glass, and she pushed it closer to her companion in request for a refill.

Cold vodka sloshed over her fingers. “I can share.” Rory was all nonchalant like that was normal.

She jumped to standing, knees flexed and arms reaching for...

Nothing.

Her breathing stabilized, and she swiped the shot glass up from the table as though that was what she’d been going for all along.

Nothing to hit. Nothing to kill. Just smooth sticky sweet slipping in her fingers. “Why would you do that?” 

Rory shrugged, smile on his face because he could see through her act. “I’m good with people.”

She snorted, and his indulgent smile disappeared.

His voice went hard. “You think Len keeps me just for my skill with fire and cuz my psycho meshes with his?” He glared, and she tried to look properly chastened. “You’d be good for us. Never had an assassin before.”

<<Had.>> There wasn’t a delicate way to ask, and neither of them were the delicate type anyway. “I’m not in this for sex.” Almost an afterthought: “And I don’t want to kill anybody.”

“An assassin who doesn’t kill.” Rory clanked the vodka bottle against her glass hard enough to shake her hand. “You’ll have to ask Len about _that_ part.”

***

Of course, Rory couldn’t speak for Snart, though he didn’t seem too worried about what the other man might say. Soon there were three of them in Snart’s chilly room, right next to Rory’s and equally as undecorated.

“Sara,” Snart acknowledged her.

She stood in a triangle with the other two, looking up at their faces and too well trained to fidget. “Hey.” She kept her knees bent and relaxed on instinct, ready to weave or kick. Ready to run.

Mick–<<thank you>>–spoke on her behalf. “Want her to join us.” He shouldered Snart out of the doorway, breaking the tableau, and ended up at slow table with electronics scattered across it.

Snart turned his back on her to watch him. Trusting the assassin at his back or trusting Rory’s judgment? “She could make a passable Rogue.” The full force of his focus came to bear on her, and he stepped close enough that she could smell the frost juniper and amber in his cologne. Her vision filled with his pink lips and pointy tongue. “Didn’t think you wanted to be on our side of the hero fence.”

She went preternaturally still. There couldn’t be any misunderstandings. Not about this. “I don’t. Not really.”

His lids flattened. “Then we’re done.”

In the background, Rory’s scraping, rasping, beeping electronics whispered in counterpoint with the broken desires of her heart. Like her brethren on the table, she was a discarded piece, and there was no way to slot her together.

Rory picked up wires and put down clumps. <<Has he talked to Jax about mechanical things?>> He didn’t look up from his sorting and connecting.

Snart sighed. “What’s this really about, Mick?”

Something in his meaty hands clicked. “She’d fit.”

Snart’s breath ghosted across her face, still so close. Wintergreen. “She doesn’t want to be a Rogue.”

<<She’s right here>>, but Sara trusted that Mick had a plan. He looked pink even in Snart’s coolly lit room.

Trusting Mick. Was it really a good idea?

Rory added, “Like me and Lisa.”

Sara startled, catching herself on her back foot. Losing composure again damnit. <<Who is Lisa?!>>

At least Snart was just as distracted. He wheeled away from her, hands hovering over whatever Rory was tinkering with till the arsonist put it down. “Not a great idea, Mick.” A bald statement. Black, white, with no shades of grey. “The Canary flies on her own. Doesn’t she, Lance?”

Last names. He never used last names. <<Criminals don’t believe in respectful terms of address?>>, she’d wondered before.

Snart wasn’t looking at her, secure in his assumptions. But this once, he was wrong.

Could she want to be his if he was wrong? Then again, that’s what Rory said was his job. <<They can’t both be good at people.>>

So she said, “That’s the thing...”

Again, Rory took over. Making her case. Saving her. “She needs us,” he said. “ _Not_ like a Rogue.”

Snart clearly understood what that meant because he evaluated her again, all squinty eyes and tilted head like he could see all her secrets. Like he couldn’t see her at all and was cataloging her advantages instead. <<Could go either way.>>

“This true, Lance?” he asked.

She flexed her knees and stood her ground. If she was going to get what she wanted, she had to lay her needs out plainly. “I don’t want to kill anymore.” It wasn’t everything she needed to say, wasn’t complete. She drew a chilly breath.

Snart had already figured out what she intended though. “And you think I can help you the way  I help Mick.” Flat. Not a question. Intrigued?

Mick was calm, running hands over his electronics, and she wanted that calm security so badly it made her fingers stretch for a knife she could use to tear that comfort out of someone’s ribcage and keep it for hers. <<Not a good metaphor for a freshly minted pacifist.>> “That was the idea.”

“You seem to have control on your own.”

Sara treated him to her most winsome smile, the one that fooled all sorts of victims. A mask. “I don’t.” Her control was a mask too.

He leaned his hip on the table, still curious. Unbearably curious. Like a child or a psychopath. “Why should I trust you?”

Sara’s mouth clicked and she wished for more of that too sweet vodka.

Again Mick took up her case. “Because _I_ think she’ll fit.”

Snart twisted till his upper body loomed over his partner’s. “Why?”

Mick leaned forward over the electronic debris, as if he wanted to make steam where hot and cold auras would meet. “Because we’re on a _team_.”

A snort. “I know how you feel about teams other than ours. Why Sara?”

She had a first name again! Her heart beat a quick double. There was hope after all.

Mick offered, “Because she’s dangerous alone.”

Snart’s lips quirked in that famous smirk. “You _like_ dangerous. And I’m getting bored with this game.” He plucked a wire off the table.  <<A garrote for those too boring to live?>> Still, he didn’t move away from his partner. He pressed, “ _Why?_ ”

<<He’s like a kid pushing his mother. Why why why?>>

Mick exploded, chair scraping the Waverider’s floor. His hands flew up to buzz his red face. The table rocked even with Snart’s weight holding it on one side. He was wild and angry. Elemental and beautiful. And no threat at all. “I just fuckin’ _think_ so all right? I feel it in my gut.” He thumped said gut with a fist.

“All right then,” Snart drew the words out. His sardonic eyebrows were probably a bad sign.

Sara felt the black rising under her skin. Death and destruction warring with white, shiny new-ness. It would overwhelm her like a wave someday. Swarm over her head and drag her down into murder and madness.

The very thought stole her breath. <<Better to die now before I can do too much damage.>> Would Rip be her executioner if she begged him? She wasn’t above begging.

Snart was in front of her again, scent of wintergreen and frost juniper cloaking her in cold white. “You’re on probation, Lance.”

What?

Mick joined him, completing that awkward triangle again. Two tall men and a short woman. He pressed a small device into her left hand. “Need a flashlight?”

<<A light to guide her out of the darkness.>> No, he wasn’t the metaphor type. It was just what he’d been able to make from the things on Snart’s desk. A desk he’d homed on like Snart kept it for him.

Maybe he did.

Snart held out a hand for her to shake and she reached for it automatically. His skin was dry, comforting. “We seal our agreement with a drink!”

A laugh startled out of her throat, almost a choke. She’d thought he was turning her away, and now they were drinking! It couldn’t be that easy. “That’s it?” <<Don’t give him reasons to rethink his offer!>>

Snart squeezed her hand in his, long fingers enveloping her grip. Keeping her from hurting anyone. “Mick does people. So that’s it.”

Mick grunted. It sounded like “I told you so.”

The sound competed with the blood rushing through her head, threatening to send her spinning. Ocean-noise in her ears. “I’m in?” she whispered through a smile she couldn’t control.

“You have the _chance_ to be in,” Snart corrected. “But first: we steal the jumpship and get drunk in a real bar.”

She’d go anywhere he wanted to go if he could keep her safe from herself. Follow him through space and time. <<O captain, my Captain Cold.>>

Snart slipped on his parka, and Sara leaned into Mick’s warmth. She murmured to her advocate, “At this bar, can I pick up a girl for fun or is this strictly team drinking?”

Mick hummed and slung an arm around her shoulders. She could break his hold if she wanted to. “Better keep it to the team tonight, or he won’t think you’re serious.”

“What about you two?”

“Best not.” He tugged her hair like nobody had done since she’d left her sister. “Then he’ll treat you like a civilian instead of a team mate.”

And whoa. That wasn’t what she’d meant at all. Sure, they were good looking, and they smelled like a boozy New Year’s party, but that wasn’t how she played.

“Well?” Snart posed in the doorway, parka straight and gun lights glowing in a pocket. “We don’t want to stay out too late. Sara’s training starts tomorrow.”

<<Training???>>

***

They hadn’t actually been able to go to a bar, it turned out. With the Waverider surfing through the time vortex, the best they could do was camp out in the jumpship and refuse to let anybody in while they blasted music off their phones and drank the forty year scotch that Rip had hidden beneath the passenger emergency brake.

The tiny ship had been hot and sour-smelling until the alcohol kicked in, and they emerged as a _team_ into the cooler, sweeter air after they’d finished the liquor and cackled through each other’s not-too-dark-for-a-first-date stories. Sara’s hair fell in astoundingly neat braids—“ _I have a sister you know”_ —and somewhere around her fifth assassination tale that started with “oh, there was this one time when”, she thought the criminal Legends really _understood_ her.

That might have been Rip’s scotch talking, though.

“Rip!” she exclaimed. He stood in the hallway, at the head of all the other crew, frown lines almost as deep as the Art Deco paneling. Sara gave him a short hug and swung him in a circle. “That was some fiiiine whisky.”

He brushed her hands off his trench coat, and Sara stepped back to where her companions were catching up. Rip used his very best “disapproving parent” voice to admonish, “There is to be no appropriation of resources on this ship.”

Stein blundered forward, forcing Rip to jostle to stay in front of him. “What if we’d needed to evacuate?” The professor seemed both reasonable and over- excited, glasses reflecting walls and faces into a kaleidoscope of Waverider.

<<Not including the criminal set.>> Even before Sara had approached Mick, the three of them had stood apart.

And Sara further still.

Mick shrugged and tugged Sara into his side. “We would have let you in.” His arm was as wide as her shoulder blades, and when it dropped the dissipating heat made her shiver in the recycled air.

His hug had maneuvered her to stand beside him. Behind Len. The two captains faced each other with their supporters arrayed behind them. <<Waverider versus Rogues.>> Her lips quirked.

“I’d thought better of you, Miss Lance.” Rip made eye contact with her, looking straight past her companions like they weren’t there.

Palmer was nodding along, Kendra squirming beside him. Hawkgirl picked at her nails instead of watching the confrontation head on. <<Must not like to see others taken to task.>>

Len’s voice was her shield. “Nothing wrong with a drunken spree between teammates. We didn’t even steal anything.”

If Len had expected that inflammatory comment to change the subject, he’d been wrong. Rip stepped into the gulf that had formed between the two groups. “Miss Lance can speak for herself, Mister Snart.”

But he was focused on Len when he said it. Not appealing to her independent nature.

Len clucked his tongue, and a disapproving mumble rose from the others. Bounced off the halls. “She doesn’t have to,” he said.

Sara weaved, shaking off the drink and testing her balance. She didn’t like the sound of that rumble. “It’s all right,” she said, but she wasn’t sure which of them she was talking to. Maybe to herself.

“Miss Lance”–at least she’d diverted Rip’s ire–“your skills may be needed. Unimpaired.”

<<Inside the time vortex?>> Sara shivered and pushed into Mick. His hot, scotch-soaked skin was hers to find comfort in. Teammates. Closer than that, assuming her probation went well.

She shrugged and flipped a braid over her shoulder, consummate party girl. <<Masks on masks on masks. And who could trust the real Sara Lance?>> “A lady’s got to blow off steam.”

She was making temperature puns like Cold and Heatwave already.

Rip nodded like anything had been decided. All in his favor, of course. “Why don’t you two return to your quarters?” he directed the criminals. To the rest he said, “The excitement pears to be over. Miss Lance, I was hoping to talk with you about an upcoming assignment.”

The group behind him milled about, knocking into each other like touching didn’t matter and heading slowly back the way they’d came. Dismissed.

Except for Sara and her mysterious assignment.

“No,” said Len. Cold and final as the vortex outside.

Everyone went quiet. Sara could hear the air recyclers and the scratch of Mick’s hand going for something in his pocket.

“ _I_ am the captain here,” Rip said.

On the other side of the hall, miles away, Jax leaned in to Kendra and whispered, “I hope they don’t mutiny or something.” None of them ever remembered Sara’s hearing was trained to kill in the dark.

Kendra smiled, too gentle. Had Sara ever been like sweet? Was that why she _needed_? “They’ll try and take you with them if they do.”

Sara didn’t think so. If they left, it would just be _them_.

She didn’t want to leave.

Len cocked his body at an angle, deflecting any words he didn’t like off to the side. “You’re captain of the _ship_ , not of my crew.”

“Might not be so bad,” Jax whispered back to Kendra. “Mick’s almost as good as you with the engines.” It wouldn’t be a kidnapping then.

Kendra looked intrigued, eyes wide and speculative. “Really?”

And then Len said it. He made The Declaration.

“You want to “assign” Mick or Sara to anything, you talk to me about it. I get final say.”

Sara’s belly warmed around the scotch, and that calm heat dimmed the destructive fire in her heart. She had a place! She was more than a point-and-kill machine.

Palmer was less thrilled. “You can’t do that!” Whether he was exclaiming to Len or Sara, it wasn’t clear.

Either way, Len took care of it. That was the point, after all. “You’ll find that I can,” he said.

Mick slid past her and up to Len’s shoulder, looming. “You want to argue about it?”

Palmer looked like he did, but it was Kendra who said, “Are you sure this is what you want, Sara?”

Sara nodded, small and quiet and only for the person who took the time to care.

“My scotch?!” Ah, Rip had finally caught up to that part of the conversation.

Professor Stein raised his hand like an enthusiastic student. “Is there any more...” <<Secret party expert! Glad I didn’t kill him.>>

“So sorry,” said Len. He didn’t sound it at all. “Let’s go.”

He waded through the Waverider set, carving a path like the tip of a knife, Mick and Sara making the run off. His muscle, his devoted followers.

<<We two simply fall into step behind him, drawn as if by invisible strings.>> She didn’t know where he was leading, and she didn’t care. He was her captain now, hopefully for always, and that was motivation enough to go wherever he went.

***

In the morning, Len and Mick found her drinking Gideon’s best hangover cure. It smelled like sulfur, but soothed her ails before vomit became a possibility.

“It’s time to train,” Len said. He tossed her a staff while Mick got two more cups of the greenish hangover goo. “We cleared a section in the storage room.”

And they had. The deco-inscribed walls had been covered over with piles of boxes. Each stack was labelled for its owner–Ray, Kendra, Stein, and so on—and out of the way enough to form a ring in the center.

Sara had three boxes in this room. Two were empty. Decoys. She kept most of her things in the pull-out drawer underneath her mattress.

Len gestured to the cleared area. “Show me your favorite killing blow,” he said. His face was shadowed in the grey lighting.

Mick sat on the metal stairs where they’d come in, smelling lightly of smoke and spilled hangover sulfur. Blocking the entrance? Not helping her.

Her hands went cold and she almost dropped the staff. <<He can’t want me to practice assassination. This is only a test.>> But she didn’t believe herself. She cleared her throat, killing _time_. “Any move can be the best one. It depends on the fight, the circumstances, the height and weight of the opponent–”

She could continue for hours. She knew all the best answers to all the possible combinations.

Len shook his head, lips pressed together like suppressing laughter. Or annoyance. “A killing combination then,” he said. “One that can only end in death.”

“But–”

“Now, Sara.” His voice was stronger than the metal hull. Colder than his gun. More powerful than Ras’.

It froze her blood in her veins–<<again with the puns>>–and she couldn’t move. Couldn’t do as he asked. She was cracking. Fractured along the iced-over lines until there was no Sara, no Canary, no Legend.

A whine built on her throat, silent enough under the circulating air. <<Why would you do this to me? I trusted you!>> She turned to Mick on the stairs, hoping for intervention, but he had a lighter in his hand, his gaze far away from her plight and boring into the plastic.

Len’s shoulders softened. “Sara.” His voice was softer too. “There’s no one here. It’s just you versus the air.”

No one to kill, and her new boss to impress. She could do this.

She dipped her head and flexed her knees. Deep breath.

She leapt forward. _Sweep ankles. Thrust forward. Spin. Slice down right. Flip (for the show off). And kneel over the invisible opponent with staff’s end poised to strike between the ribs._

Sara held the final pose for one, two, three heartbeats. Then she stood, straightened, and bowed.

“No,” Len said. “Do it again, and this time don’t pull the final blow.”

To her side, Mick snorted. “Wanna see you _end_ that dust mite, Blondie.”

She had to trust. Leap, sweep, thrust, spin, slice, flip. _Clanggg_.

The end of her staff pounded hard into the deck, and the reverberations shook her arm till her muscles stood out. But she waited for permission to rise and to shake out the ache. “Well?” she asked her captain, a bit smug. << _This_ , I’m good at.>>

Len gave her the slow clap. And then he said, “Again.”

<<That’s all you have to say?>> Sara sniffed, but did as he demanded. Nine more times.

So far, training for Len seemed an awful lot like training for things she didn’t want to do. With a bonus sore arm.

“Maybe we should change it up a little,” she suggested. Next time, she’d go for the roundhouse to the incorporeal face.

He crossed his arms, shirt pulling at the shoulders. “Again.”

Sara didn’t sigh, but she didn’t put quite as much force into her next pass either. Leap, sweep, thrust. Bored bored bored. Spin, slice, flip.

“Sara!” Len yelled. It was the same tone he used when Mick tried to sneak open his Zippo in the airtight jump ship.

Her heart pounded out of rhythm. She tumbled through air, arm poised for the instinctive kill-strike. Like a well-rehearsed cat, she landed. _Clanggg_. Objective achieved, she listed sideways, balance shot from the shock.

She whirled on him, staff sweeping a furious radius in front of her. “What the hell was that?”

Len’s lips quirked. <<Is he smirking at me? Let’s see him manage not to fall over.>> He tsked like a granny. “That was you failing to stop when I told you to.”

How was she to know? Anger burned in her chest, then cooled into desperate worry.

How was she ever going to be able to _stop_?

“Annoying as everything, ain’t it?” Mick was still focused on his lighter, but his presence was companionship. Camraderie. He’d been through this too. Had learned not to do what his body screamed when Len used that tone of voice.

Len was the override to Mick’s self-destruct.

Sara was going to make damned sure the trigger worked for her as well. “Again?” she asked, looking up at Len through vulnerable eyelashes.

He chuffed, more a laugh than she’d heard from him in weeks. “Again,” he agreed.

This time, when he yelled her name, she made herself fall over so she couldn’t bring the staff down. It wasn’t graceful, but it stopped the killing blow.

“Next,” he said. “We learn to differentiate the tones.”

That way, she wouldn’t just respond to her name. Sensible, but <<Fuck>>.

Her smile came sharp and vicious. She’d trained like this before. Harder and crueler and more precise than anyone she knew.

***

For weeks they trained. Whenever Len decided the time was right, she’d find herself in the storage area with a staff, a knife, and once a water pistol.

Dragged from sleep or right after dinner. First thing in the morning or pulled out of her shower. (She’d been careful not to slip on water while he put her through spinning kicks on that one. Mick hadn’t been so lucky, his fall rattling the crates along the walls.)

She learned. No matter the conditions—wet, cold, hot, sleepy, hungover—Len’s sharp “Sara!” signaled the order to pull the blow. A low “Enough!” meant she should “Sara!” and then fall into place at his side as soon as she could. A cleared throat meant to look at him for updated instructions.

“Oh!” Kendra’s surprised exclamation came in the middle of a complicated combination involving thrown daggers.

Len snapped, “Enough!” and Sara came to stand behind his left shoulder. Mick levered off the stairs to claim Len’s right, giving the woman a path into the storage area.

“I didn’t realize you would be here at this hour.” Kendra’s statement was half apology and all embarrassment. “Should I go?” She’d reached the bottom of the steps and turned to leave before she’d even gotten what she’d come for. “I should go.”

“No, please.” Len was somehow polite while still maintaining the drawl.  “Can we help you get to your crate?”

Mick huffed and gave them his back, trusting Len and Sara to protect it while he searched for the right stack.

“I don’t want to be any trouble…” Kendra’s voice trailed off, and she screwed a finger into her opposite hand.

Len shook his head, negating her worries. “Mick can get your things.” He stayed in front of Sara and Mick, though, watching Kendra through ever-flicking eyes. Seeing all, calculating all the moves, ready to place his pieces at a second’s notice.

Mick’s voice was muffled and put-upon. “Thanks for volunteering me, boss.” But he was already shifting crates to get to the ones with Kendra’s name on them.

“Just pass me that second box, please,” said Kendra. “That one with the pink nail polish mark on it?”

“Ooooh, that’s clever,” Sara breathed, overplaying her admiration. She didn’t know how to act around Kendra anymore, not since that fateful sparring match. “I should have done it too.”

Mick saved Sara from saying anything more inane. “I got it, Birdie.”

Sparring match! Seeing Sara training with Len must have been awful for her. It was impressive the woman hadn’t fled in fear for her life. Though, that hadn’t ever seemed to be Kendra’s way.

The marked crate thudded into the middle of the training floor and Kendra knelt over it, sifting quickly through papers and pieces and jackets. She pulled a silver bracelet out, winking dimly in the grey light. “Thanks. Ummm.”

Mick folded the top back over and hefted the crate back into place before Kendra had to ask.

“Any time,” Len drawled. Because he really _did_ work well with the others, even if he clashed with Rip over how the ship was run and who exactly got to give orders to whom.

Kendra waved her hand with the silver watch—saying good-bye?—but paused at the foot of the stairs. “I just wanted to say...” She took a deep breath and tried again, brave in the face of uncertain situations staffed by the most unpredictable people around. “I know my opinion doesn’t mean anything, but this looks like it’ll be really good for you, Sara.”

Sara’s chest lightened. Kendra wasn’t too afraid of her, after all. “I appreciate that.” If anyone on this ship had experience with Sara’s need for control, it was the woman she’d almost killed during a friendly bout.

Kendra nodded, like they’d shared some deeper communication. “You’re welcome. I’ll ask the others not to bother you anymore.”

Len replied on all their behalf. “Thank you, Kendra.” Then Hawkgirl was gone, and Len’s focus returned to his task at hand. Training. “Again,” he ordered.

Sara leapt to his command.

***

It was 2046, and Sara was all alone in a Smoak warehouse when she realized Rip had played her. Rip couldn’t give her ultimatums. Rip couldn’t send her out alone.

Her shoulders were firm with purpose, and her ribs beat in time with her righteous heart. But her eyes unfocused where they’d been staring at the perfect weapons.

She sucked in a breath through vibrating teeth. <<How dare he?>> She’d let him turn her all around until she’d retreated into angry instinct. Old instinct.

 _Wrong_ instinct.

She tapped the little communication device that Mick had given her weeks before. It was short range. Good enough when the ship was still here in Star City. “Gideon?”

The AI’s voice echoed in her ear. “How may I help you, Miss Lance?”

The call forwarded to Len, and she heard him drawl, “Can’t leave our Canary to have all the fun, can we, Mick?”

She met them at Oliver Queen’s hideout, a bow in her hand and a staff on her back. Len made the plan, as he should. And then Mick—in a ridiculous coat—was delivering her to Slade’s son. Like an offering. Like a prisoner.

“Kill him, Sara,” Len ordered in her earpiece, and she surged forward. She leapt onto the platform where the man who’d destroyed her city wanted to keep hacking and pounding until there was nothing left. She was reaction. She was death.

She was going to kill him.

Slade’s son hadn’t fought a _real_ League assassin before, and he gave ground under her blows. She pummeled him with her full force. Used all her speed. If this thrust made it through his guard, he would hemorrhage to death. If that slice went unblocked, the trauma would break his spine.

Leap, sweep, thrust, spin, slice, flip. Her arm raised overhead, poised to bring the downward killing blow with all her body’s momentum behind it. Salty sweat filled her mouth when she breathed in.

Deathstroke stumbled back. He wouldn’t be able to evade her this time.

From yards away, embroiled in his own fight, Len snapped, “Sara! Enough!”

Her knees flexed hard as she landed her flip at an unplanned angle. She dropped and rolled past her quarry. Right off the platform. Her pulse rushed in her ears.

_Thwack._

Or maybe that had been the flight of the arrow over her head, landing solidly in Deathstroke’s chest. She didn’t look for which Green Arrow had dealt the wound. That wasn’t her purpose.

Right now, she had to cross a battlefield until she reached her rightful place at Len’s left shoulder. _He_ could worry about the politics of this temporary world.

***

When the whole crew returned to the Waverider, they were in high spirits. They’d worked as a team to save the day. Even Rip smiled while he admonished them not to be too proud of themselves.

She threw her arms around Len and squeezed him tight enough to make his bones creak. “Thank you. I love you, boss. You’re the best.” Her words rushed together from the adrenaline.

Her smile cut all the way from her mouth to her ears. She’d been useful. She hadn’t killed anyone. She was _Len’s_ Sara, not a solitary assassin self-destructing in loneliness.

Len was ice-sculpture still in her embrace.

“Boss isn’t like us, Blondie.” Mick eased her off their marvelous, wonderful, perfect Captain Cold. “You can throw yourself at him, but you’re the one who has to break.”

His own post-fight smile was sharp, and his eyes danced like flames.

Sara was pleased to say she was a lot like Mick Rory. Dangerous, happy, and totally in control.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun story: I wrote about half of this in Las Vegas. Other people vacation there to gamble or see the sights. I sat on the pool deck and wrote fanfic. Decadent and nerdy!
> 
> If you're curious, the first scene was initially written from Mick's POV. Here's a snippet of that:
> 
> Mick was good at people. Especially other criminals.
> 
> So when Len asked, “What do you think about Sara?” eyes intent his cold gun’s insides while they cleaned their pieces side by side, alone in their room, Mick knew what he meant. His drawl hid any ulterior motives in the question, but this was an assessment request.
> 
> Mick harrumphed. “Blondie could be a Rogue. If she wanted.”
> 
> Mick knew the symptoms. Lance’s eyes burned bright black Death flames. They were beautiful and shiny and going to eat her up from the inside if she didn’t get control. If he didn’t have Len, he’d immolate alongside her. >
> 
> But he did have Len. 
> 
> “Only if she wanted?”
> 
> Mick shrugged, knowing his partner would see the movement out of the corner of his eye. Len tracked everything, even when he didn’t mean to. >


End file.
